Many books and scientific articles have been written about dogs. This animal is the first one domesticated by humans (according to various sources, from 20 to 50 thousand years ago), so familiar to each of us, it still remains a mystery to scientists. There are many assumptions about the origin, domestication of Canis Familiaris, and so far there are only guesses about the secrets of her brain and amazing abilities.

The relationship between a dog and a person has been of scientific and everyday interest for a long time. “There is no other animal that would so radically change its entire lifestyle, its entire sphere of interests, and would become domesticated to such an extent as a dog.” The need for special knowledge and approaches to building relationships with dogs was understood in ancient times. So, for example, in the first century BC the first treatise on dogs known to us appeared. In Marcus Terence Varro's encyclopedic work On Agriculture, he describes the different types of dogs, how to choose a puppy, dog food, breeding, and how to train dogs. Similar works are known in many ancient states.

“For thousands of years, a dog has lived next to us - a faithful friend and helper of man. She protects herds of sheep and cows, searches for criminals, detects drugs, helps hunters track and shoot game, guards the state border, guides people who have lost their sight through the streets, serves physiologists, biologists and astronauts, plays with children - you name it. Since time immemorial, dogs have helped people in their work and protected their homes from enemies and wild animals. The man appreciated the dog’s unpretentiousness, endurance, fast running, keen sense of smell, and excellent hearing. A man fell in love with a dog for his exceptional affection for him, his willingness to sacrifice his life in the name of man.” Even the familiar “dog language” was invented by dogs for the sake of communicating with people.

“The wild relatives of dogs did not bark. They communicated with sounds of a different order: howling, squealing, growling. The barking of a domestic dog is a signal addressed to the “two-legged pack.” This is an excited message about danger, a call to stopped or pursued prey..., an expression of emotion. “Having learned to bark,... tamed dogs “invented” a unique language for communicating with humans...”

“Historically, the relationship between a dog and a person was very difficult. We observe both periods of complete mutual understanding and strong friendship, and periods of ignoring and merciless use of these animals.” “But what gives the right to judge how everything was there thousands of years ago, when there was no writing and, it seems, there is no evidence of that life? There is evidence - these are archaeological finds and rock paintings of Stone Age people; research by ethnographers studying the life of modern peoples standing at the level of Stone Age people; knowledge of the habits and biology...of animals...The first people have been known since the Paleolithic. It must be said that humans and dogs have a lot in common. Firstly, they are contemporaries. Both dogs and humans belong to the same fauna in the history of the Earth. As man...became Homo sapiens, the wild dog became tame and domesticated. This parallel is clearly expressed in the findings of paleoanthropologists: with each new stage of human development, signs of domestication are more clearly visible on dog skulls.”

Once upon a time, human society was something similar to a pack of wild dogs. The habitats of these two species, the methods of hunting, and even its objects coincided. So they simply could not, in the end, fail to notice the obvious advantages of living together. Even human and dog milk turned out to be close in composition. Scientists know of cases where in some tribes children were fed the milk of a whelping dog.

In the Mesolithic, bows and arrows were invented, “bone needles with ears indicate the making of clothing from skins, many tools were made from deer antler and animal bones, people learned to make fishing gear and hollow out shuttle boats.” The construction of primitive pile structures and the transition to the conscious use of the capabilities of dogs for their own purposes, that is, to domestication, date back to the same historical period. It is from the remains of the pile-building culture that the life of the Mesolithic era is best studied. “The stone tools of these people turn out to be smooth, and not roughly chipped, as before. For the first time, shards of pottery begin to be found... In the lowest layers of pile buildings... the remains of dogs are found,” which were given the name “peat bog spitz.” Continuing geographical and climatic changes led to the fact that after 1.5 - 2 thousand years people had a new type of dog. And the man himself has changed. The Cro-Magnons left us a legacy of excellent drawings of animals carved on the walls of caves. “From these drawings we can now judge what animals were in Europe at that time. 8 thousand years ago, following the steppe animals, the first wave of Asian peoples penetrated into Europe... and herds of domestic animals... Along with them there was a dog... It could resemble Central European shepherd dogs."

Due to the coincidence of this time with the invention of bronze, the era was called the Bronze Age, and the dog was called the Bronze Shepherd.

“Towards the end of the Bronze Age, in the ash deposits of Bohemia and lower Austria and in other places, the remains of the so-called ash dog are found... similar to modern hounds.... Their significance in the life of man of that time is indicated by the fact that ash dogs were buried together with the owner during burial and sacrificed to the gods as the greatest value. After the Bronze Age came the Iron Age... a thousand years BC... during this period of history several more dog breeds appeared. Man began to use dogs based on their natural and acquired abilities as indispensable helpers in the household: for hunting, herding livestock, protecting homes, and even for transporting goods. In different places among different peoples, the process of forming the relationship between man and dog proceeded differently. This is explained by the climatic and geographical features of the habitats of human tribes, and cultural traditions, and the religious ideas of peoples that are beginning to take shape. “The deification of incomprehensible and powerful forces of nature, the worship of spirits began. For example: in Ancient Egypt there was a custom of burying people together with dogs, because then the god of all the dead existed Anubis (the appearance of a man-dog) and it was believed that the spirit of a dog that lies next to a person’s body would accompany the spirit of a person on the way to another world .

According to the cult burials of dogs and customs known among the Polynesians and on the Hawaiian Islands, according to legends and myths studied by ethnographers, an interesting picture emerges of the ideas of different peoples about the dog as a protector from evil spirits. The oldest (Mesolithic) burial of an old man with a puppy was found in Palestine (Einan). In the Neolithic, such burials are already found in Central Europe, China, the Baikal region, and in pre-dynastic Egypt. In the Bronze Age, their range covered vast areas from Southern Siberia to Mesopotamia and Western Europe, Yakutia, Chukotka, Japan... In Hawaii, dogs were killed in the event of the death of a child, believing that they would protect his soul. The Eskimos placed dog heads in the graves of their children as a symbol of a guardian. Ethnographers have discovered among many primitive peoples ideas about dogs as intermediaries between people and spirits...

But not only the dead, but also the living were protected by dogs from evil spirits in the ideas of ancient people. Dogs were credited with “supernatural” power and used this power to protect their homes by making sacrifices.” In eastern and southeastern New Guinea, hunting dogs were especially revered. Along with hunters, they were considered the breadwinners of families. In case of death, they were buried as people and mourned for several days.

“The peoples of Western Asia began to use dogs to protect herds from numerous predators. Dogs from the Neolithic times of North Africa are known to us as hunting and guard dogs from rock paintings.”

In the regions of Siberia and the Far North, among the peoples of the Amur, in the peat bogs of Finland, in the north of Eastern Europe, archaeologists and ethnographers find confirmation of the use of dogs as the very first draft force. And who knows, maybe thanks to dogs, sleighs were invented? But it is undeniable that the guarding, herding and hunting abilities of dogs have greatly advanced the development of human society. Of all the animals domesticated by humans, it was the dog that helped people become successful hunters, farmers and cattle breeders, which means it is difficult to overestimate its contribution to the formation of settlements and a sedentary lifestyle of people in general.

Several thousand years ago, when people were already leading a sedentary lifestyle, engaged in agriculture and cattle breeding, “they began to depict dogs on rocks, walls, various household items, and make sculptures. These images give us the opportunity to judge the appearance of dogs. With the development of writing, the first mentions of dogs and rituals associated with them appeared.”

The ancient Aryans, the creators of the Rig Veda and Avesta, believed that dogs were messengers of the god of death and should accompany the deceased. Therefore, it is not surprising that in the burials of those times the remains of people and dogs are found in the same grave.

There remains written evidence of the hunting and war dogs of the ancient Persians. Thus, it is reported about King Cyrus (560-529 BC) that he kept such a large number of hunting dogs that taxes from the four most important cities of the country were not enough to cover the costs of their maintenance. When mentioning another Persian king, Xerxes (486-465 BC), it is said that during one military campaign he used wild dogs. In Ancient Mesopotamia, on bas-reliefs of the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. e., a time when stone tools were increasingly replaced by metal ones, Spitz-shaped dogs are depicted.

The culture of the Aegean world, which developed on the islands and coastal areas of the Aegean Sea, occupied an intermediate position between the ancient Eastern slave states and the culture of Ancient Greece. Crete became the largest island of the Aegean Sea, which became the center of trade routes between Egypt, Phenicia, Syria and Greece. During excavations in Crete, among archaeological finds dating back to the 2nd millennium BC. e., there are images of dogs with short erect ears, lean, with a sickle-shaped tail, images of Great Danes, seals depicting the so-called Cretan dog.

The pinnacle of the deification of dogs in the entire history of mankind was its position in ancient Egyptian religion and mythology. God, the patron saint of the dead, Iptu (in Egyptian), or Anubis (in Greek), was revered in the images of a lying black jackal or a wild dog Sab.

This position of the dogs was hardly accidental. They played a significant role in the life of the ancient Egyptians. What is most striking is that in this state there were such a large number of breeds of domestic dogs that are not found in any ancient state. Judging by the surviving drawings, there were graceful greyhounds, hounds, Spitz-type breeds, as well as those about which we do not yet know what they were:

To understand where such a variety of dogs could have come from here, you will have to return briefly to the Paleolithic. The fact is that livestock breeding and agriculture did not originate on the territory of the future Egyptian state, but in the adjacent areas (in the Sahara and North Africa).

In the Paleolithic, the climate in the Sahara was completely different from what it is now. At a time when glaciers covered Europe, and somewhat later, the Sahara was irrigated by numerous rivers. Now all that remains of them are waterless riverbeds - “wadis”. The desert began to form later, 5 thousand years BC. And in the Stone Age, shrubby and grassy savannas stretched throughout North Africa, and forests grew in the mountains. Turs lived here - ancient primitive bulls, goats, sheep, deer, antelopes, elephants, giraffes. At the end of the Paleolithic - Mesolithic, ancient people made rock paintings, from which we can now judge the animal world of those times. There was a wide variety of wild dogs in the Sahara and North Africa. They served as the source material from which the ancient Egyptians subsequently created domesticated forms. Hyena dogs, hyenas, and cheetahs were tamed. On a fresco dating back to the 6th millennium BC. e., greyhounds are depicted in the form of a pack of four dogs in collars. In the top row of the same fresco two hyena dogs are depicted on a leash. By the 4th millennium BC. In Egypt, the custom of burying a dog with its owner was already known.

In Egypt, judging by the surviving drawings and remains, there were at least three types of dogs. They had their own designation in hieroglyphs. One surviving letter from the time of Menefthis (19th Dynasty) names 200 dogs of the Uau species and 300 of the Unzu species. Scientists believe that animal selection began with dogs.

Indoor dogs were especially held in high esteem by the Egyptians. They were considered sacred. In the event of the death of a dog, its owner cut the hair on his head as a sign of mourning, embalmed the animal and solemnly buried it.

There were much fewer dog breeds in Assyria than in Egypt. At the most ancient monuments only two mastiff breeds are found. Later, on clay tablets found in the library of the penultimate Assyrian king Assurbanipal (668-626 BC), mention of new breeds appeared: domestic, hunting, lap and so-called Elamite dogs. Among the inhabitants of Assyria, the dog played a large role in superstitions. They said that “if a yellow dog enters the palace, then this is a sign of sad fate for the palace; if a spotted dog enters the palace, the king will ask for peace from the enemy; if a dog runs into the palace and lies down on a chair, the palace will burn down.”

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